RangeBooster N 650 Notebook Adaptor review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 22 Sep 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Alan Lu

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

ExpertReviews Award

Review
Specs

D-Link's RangeBooster N 650 looks nicer than most of the other routers in this group.

It's also easier to set up than D-Link's 802.11g router thanks to two simple setup wizards. The web configuration page, which can be accessed by UPnP, is far clearer and more organised than the one used by the cheaper D-Link router.

The RangeBooster router is the only one in the group to have a USB port. This allows you to configure it using Windows XP's useful Connect Now system. See http://tinyurl.com/esrux for more details on how this works.

When connected to D-Link's RangeBooster CardBus adaptor, the RangeBooster router produced some impressive transfer speeds. Its 42.4Mbit/s result at 1m was the best here and its speeds of 33.2Mbit/s at 15m and 5.4Mbit/s at 25m both came a close second.

Connecting the RangeBooster to a Centrino notebook was initially problematic, as the connection dropped several times. To fix the problem, we switched the router from the standard mode, which operates with 802.11n and 802.11g devices, to 802.11g only. This isn't an ideal solution, though, as it will reduce the speed of computers connected using a RangeBooster card.

Once connected, the Centrino adaptor produced good if not outstanding results. We were surprised the RangeBooster router and adaptor don't support WEP encryption. WEP is less secure than the more modern WPA security system, but WEP support is still useful if you plan to connect older computers or devices without WPA support.

The RangeBooster router is easy to install and if you use it with the matching CardBus network adaptor it can be very fast. If you use WPA this is an extremely fast and capable router that's easy to use. If you need WEP, we recommend Buffalo's Nfiniti instead.

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